


To the beat of the drums

by kuhekabir



Series: To the beat of the drums [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Insanity, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:53:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuhekabir/pseuds/kuhekabir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Sure," Harry shrugged. "Why not? Do you fancy a particular bush, or will any do? Or, if he we walk a bit further, there's even a hedge!"</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>The Doctor looked confused. He blinked several times, his mouth gaping open like a fish. "Errr," he stuttered. "I like hedges," he offered up.</i></p><p> </p><p>Nothing is ever simple when an amnesiac Master encounters the 11th Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"What do you think you're playing at?" The stranger snarled.

Before he had a chance to react, the deranged man grabbed him by the collar and hauled him forward.

Harry stumbled, losing his footing. He couldn’t stop his descent, and apparently the crazy person hadn't seen this coming either. They both went down.

"Umpfh," Harry groaned as he came to rest on top of a rather firm chest. He put his hands next to the guy's face, trapping him on the muddy ground. He might be on the run, but he had no intention of letting some fancy git push him around. 

"What am _I_ playing at?" He threw the words back at the stranger. "What's wrong with you? Do you always jump perfect strangers in the middle of the day? You know," Harry gave the guy a thoughtful look. The brown, floppy hair made the guy look kind of endearing. And the eyes could only be described as soul-deep. A total opposite to Harry's own rather warmish brown colouring. Well, he might be tempted to call the guy cute. 

Harry smirked. He leaned a little bit closer. He was rewarded with the stranger slightly widening his eyes. "If you're interested in hooking up, you're going about it the wrong way. If you want to be cheap, and not even spring for a beer, you might at least ask a guy first before initiating a tumble. And," Harry drew out the word to give it more meaning. "The location isn’t really ideal, now is it?"

The slight flush on the man's face had Harry preening. Before he could savour the moment, the guy grabbed his hips and forcefully shoved him sideways. Despite being so lanky and painfully thin, the stranger sure as hell was strong.

"You don’t…?" The Cutie stuttered. "I mean…"

Harry couldn’t be sure, but he got the impression the guy usually wasn’t one to be at a loss for words.

"Hi!" The crazy person suddenly beamed at him, holding out his hand. "I'm the Doctor. Who are you?"

Harry blinked. "What kind of name is that? Who introduces himself with his title?"

"Humour me, will you?" The guy pleaded. "I got a name. I just don’t want to use it."

Who was Harry to second guess someone else's issues? If this lunatic wanted to go around being called _the Doctor_ who was he to say otherwise?

"All right," Harry conceded with a small nod. "I'm Harry." He cringed almost instantly. He shouldn’t have given him his real name. He opened his mouth, about to take it back, when he realized it might look even odder if he tried to change it now. So he covered his faux pas with a weak smile. Tracey was going to kill him. Well, she didn’t have to find out, right? Who was going to tell her? Reassured, Harry focused on the situation at hand.

"Nice to meet you, Harry," the Doctor beamed, shaking Harry's hand rather vigorously. "So you want to?" The voice trailed off suggestively, leaving only one meaning in Harry's mind.

Harry stared before his eyes widened slightly. "Here?" He asked. He rubbed his jaw. He couldn’t be sure, he had no real data to draw his conclusions from, but he doubted he'd been a prude before. Still, there seemed something to be a bit wrong with doing it behind the bushes for anyone to stumble over them. He eyed the strangers carefully. He couldn’t be sure, but there was something enigmatic about him.

"Sure," Harry shrugged. "Why not? Do you fancy a particular bush, or will any do? Or, if he we walk a bit further, there's even a hedge!"

The Doctor looked confused. He blinked several times, his mouth gaping open like a fish. "Errr," he stuttered. "I like hedges," he offered up.

"The hedge it is then," Harry declared. He casually bumped into the Doctor's bony shoulder before slowly walking ahead. It didn’t take the guy long enough to fall into step with him. They walked in silence for a few minutes until the hedge came in sight.

"What's so special about the hedge?" The Doctor asked. "Well," he added rather quickly. "I've known a few hedges back on Axorimxum. They weren't green. Well, greenish. They were sort of purple. And if you weren't careful, they tended to move. Got really offended once when I tried to trim one. How was I supposed to know they were sentient? Contrary to popular believe, I don’t know everything." He sounded a bit petulant about the last bit, as if it had come up often enough to be an issue for him.

_Sentient hedges?_

"Well," Harry admitted, letting the weird comments go. "I prefer beds myself. Or at least a good old fashioned table or sofa, but I'm game."

A glance at the Doctor showed him the guy was confused again. Harry's patience was on short supply on a good day, so he grabbed the Doctor by his shoulders, pulling him towards him. Then, he smashed their lips together. The startled gasp coming from the other man was all he needed to invade the guy's mouth.

"Hm," he moaned, savouring the moment. He inched closer, wanting, no needing, more bodily contact. Before he could deepen the kiss and get anywhere, he suddenly lost contact. "What?"

"What do you think you're doing?" The Doctor's voice held a high pitched tone Harry would've have associated with him. He blinked. Then he sighed. He ran his fingers through his short hair, stalling for time.

"If you don’t want to hook up, why are we here then?" He asked.

"Hook up?" The Doctor's voice rose even higher. "With _you_?" 

Harry bristled. "You started it," he yelled. "And what's wrong with me? Am I not fancy enough for you? Cultured enough? Are my clothes the wrong style? Too muddy perhaps? Or you're simply a tease roaming the countryside looking for people to string along?"

Harry had read his online profile. Truth to be told, he'd scared himself with how impressive it had been. Plus, the whole prime minister thing had him sort of cringing. But it wasn’t as if he could remember any of the schools he'd gone to. Or assassinating anyone for the matter. When he'd woken up in the field, he hadn’t even known his own bloody name!

"No!" The Doctor suddenly yelled. "That's not what I meant!"

Harry had enough. He turned, but he only got to take a few steps before the Doctor practically leaped at him, forcing him to stop. "I want to get to know you. I don’t know how you could possibly think I wanted to sleep with you, but don’t go?" The last bit was said tentatively, as if it was really important.

"I shouldn’t really be talking to crazy people," Harry told him.

"Look who's talking," the Doctor muttered.

"Excuse me?" Harry demanded to know. "I'm not the one who jumped on a perfect stranger. You practically tripped me up and then asked me to go and see hedges."

"I didn’t ask you to go and see hedges. And I didn’t trip you up. You fell on me! Do you always have to twist anything I say?"

Harry blinked. "Whatever," he dismissed the guy.

"I know who you are."

The words were barely audible but they froze Harry mid-step. If this so called Doctor knew who he really was, he might alert the authorities where he was. He wasn’t too concerned with his own well-being, but what about Tracy? She'd taken him in, nursed him back to health. She could lose her farm over this.

"You're coming with me," Harry used his most threatening voice. To his dismay, the Doctor only seemed amused. The guy raised one eye brow at him. OK, threatening wasn’t going to cut it. Change of tactics then. Harry forced himself to laugh madly. It startled the brown-haired man into taking a surprised step backwards. "Can you hear it?" Harry went on to sing-song. "Isn't the noise splendid?"

Crazy did seem to work because after one well-placed punch, the Doctor was out cold. Excellent. Thankfully, the small cottage wasn’t too far away. Harry alternated between dragging and carrying the unconscious man until his new home came into full view. He didn’t even have to push the door open because Tracey welcomed him straight away.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She yelled at him.

Was this a theme? Harry wondered. Who would be asking him the same question next? A bird? A butterfly?

"He recognized me."

"And you're first instinct was to hit him over the head?"

"No," Harry answered defensively. "I wanted to shag him behind the hedge. He seemed offended at the idea though, don’t know why."

"The hedge?"

"You know," Harry used his head to point to his left. "The one with the little red dots."

"They aren’t dots, you idiot. They are blossoms."

Harry shrugged.

"What should we do with him then?"

"Do you have a well?"

"Yes?"

"We could dump him in there," Harry suggested. Why his heart gave a little twinge at the thought, he didn’t know. But this wasn’t about him. He could take care of himself. He would survive whatever the bloody universe threw at him. But he wasn’t going to let Tracey be caught in the cross fire. Why the blasted woman had taken pity on him and taken him in, he didn’t know. But he owed her a debt. And even with no memory of his previous life, he knew he took debts very seriously.

"You're an utter nutter, you know that, right?"

"If we can't drown him, what else do you suggest we do with him?" He paused. "Do you have a gun? Oh wait," he added slightly gleefully. "You have knives! I've always wanted to see what…"

"No," she said firmly. "You can tie him to the chair in the kitchen. You know which one I'm talking about. The sturdy one."

With a heavy sigh, Harry dragged the still unconscious man the last few steps. Tracey provided the rope, and a few minutes later, the guy was wrapped up like a present.

"Happy birthday to me," Harry sing-songed.

It was right then the Doctor woke up.

"It's not your birthday," he grumbled.

"I know," Harry cheerfully added. "But I've still got a present."

"Sit," Tracey barked. Before Harry could stop himself, he'd sat down. He glared at the short woman who didn’t seem to be fazed at all. "You're all bark," she told him. "I know you won't bite me."

"Don't tempt me," Harry groused.

Tracey casually leaned against the counter, her fingers idly stroking a gleaming blade. She might have opposed his idea of carving up the good Doctor, but she wasn’t above using the threat of such an action to intimidate the man. Since the guy apparently had a good poker face, Harry couldn’t tell if it was effective or not.

"So you know who Harry is," she stated.

"Do you?" The Doctor challenged.

"Then you know we can't allow you to leave. It wasn’t his fault what happened."

Truthfully, Harry wasn’t so sure about that. The woman's conviction he was the wronged party in some sort of conspiracy theory was flattering, but she wasn’t alone with his thoughts in the middle of the night. Nor did she wake up from nightmares he couldn’t remember afterwards. If he had a clean conscience, would it plague him so? He doubted it. But he was self-centred enough to accept her help regardless. He figured, he could make it up to her by making sure no harm came to her for taking him in.

"Not his fault?" The Doctor spluttered.

"He was possessed," Tracey stated calmly. "He might've pulled the trigger to kill the American president, but it wasn’t really him. He doesn’t deserve to be hunted or locked up. He needs time to heal his wounds."

What wounds she was talking about he didn’t know either. Sure, his head killed him at times, sometimes even his chest ached and he might see strange spots in front of his vision, but it wasn’t as if he'd arrived banged up. Well, he might've been unconscious for a few days, but clearly he was fine now, right? No scratch on him!

The Doctor's incredulous expression must mirror Harry's own, but neither one of them contradicted the small woman. For someone who barely reached Harry's chin, she sure as hell knew how to dominate a room. Her short-cropped hair and frail-looking body only added to the illusion of innocence and weakness. Harry couldn’t really say for sure, but he would've sworn to never have met someone as strong willed as her. Nothing could move her once her mind was made up.

"Don’t waste your breath," Harry informed the Doctor. "I've tried to tell her that possessions sound just about as reasonable as us being invaded by aliens. Truthfully, I don’t recall what happened. But I'm pretty sure if everyone says I pulled the trigger, then I most certainly did."

"I'm an alien."

"Just because you're from Canada or Australia doesn’t make you an alien. Well, technically, you might be in the country illegally, but you're still human."

"I'm not…" the Doctor started to say but whatever was going to come next was cut off when Tracey interrupted them.

"I won't let you hurt him."

"Believe me," the Doctor turned on his puppy eyes. Harry had to admit, it was a very effective look. The pretty eyes widened, his face took on an angelic expression and there were even tiny crinkles around his eyes. He looked just about as harmless as fluffy bunny rabbit would. "All I want is to help. This is all I ever wanted."

"All right."

"You can't believe him!" Harry shouted, alarmed when she put the knife down. "Just because he says the sky is blue, doesn’t mean it is. It could be purple! You never take anyone's word for anything!"

"I've taken you at your word that you won't harm me," she calmly told him.

"That's different," Harry insisted. "You can't trust him. The moment you cut him free, he'll run!"

"No, he won't," she told him.

"No, I won't," the Doctor said at the same time.

"You want me to tell you why I know he won't run?" Tracey asked him as kneeled down behind the chair so she could undo the bindings. "Because he keeps staring at you as if he's the cat and you're the mouse."

"Great," Harry muttered. "He wants to eat me then. So much better."


	2. Chapter 2

"You're really good at this, aren’t you?"

The sharp flare of pain, where Harry nicked his thumb, took him by surprised. He let out a string of curses while he rolled out from underneath the car. Leaving the Doctor with Tracey, so he could escape their knowing smiles, had really been the only choice for him. Tracey on her own was bad enough, but combined with someone else who seemed to be a know-it-all, well, retreat had really seemed the best course of action. Or mayhem.

"Sorry," the Doctor said somewhat sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders to underline his comment.

Harry slowly got up. He then leaned against the car. He raised his thumb to his mouth, licking it clean. The wound wasn’t deep, he'd just been taken by surprise. "I get by," he finally answered the question. Truth of it was, all things mechanical kind of spoke to him. He didn’t want to brag, but he was pretty sure he could fix nearly anything. According to Tracey, he was also rather inventive about getting rid of problems. In the short time he'd been on her farm, he had worked on nearly all of her equipment. There was even one incident they had both sworn never to speak off again. They only occasionally referred to it as the _night where all sanity had left the building_. There might've been a few appliances involved which hadn't taken kindly to being discarded. Enough said.

"You've always been rather brilliant."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You weren’t lying then," he slowly stated, drawing out each word since he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying himself. "You really do know me."

"I do," the Doctor answered, bouncing on his heels. "What do you remember?"

Harry shrugged. He couldn’t recall anything beyond the field where Tracey had found him. The rest he'd pieced together by searching online since Tracey, thankfully, had recognized his face. There were times though, when he thought he might've been happier not knowing he was a murderer. Tracey could deny the facts as much as she wanted, he could feel the truth in his hearts. His mind stuttered to a halt. _Heart_ , he corrected himself. Humans only had one heart.

A distant sound alerted him to the presence of others. He tilted his head, listening carefully. He tensed, rolling his shoulders to get himself ready. All happened so fast, he didn’t even have the time to consciously think about what he was doing. "Look out!" He shouted as he flung himself forward. He collided with the Doctor, causing them both to go down hard. Something flew past him, impacting the metal drum behind them with a loud thump.

To give the guy credit, the Doctor wasn’t confused for long. When Harry pushed himself off the ground, scrambling to get behind the relative safety of the car, the Doctor was right there with him. A loud explosion at the front of the house had Harry abandoning his relatively safe spot, dashing towards the house as if hell hound were yapping at his heels.

"Master!" The Doctor yelled after him at the top of his lungs. Harry wasn’t listening. Tracey was in the kitchen. It was on the front side of the house, right where the explosion had gone off. He flexed his fingers. Rage, like liquid lava slowly cascading down the slope of a volcano, spilled through him. It started spreading out from his gut, slowly moving upwards and downwards until he was almost shaking with it. Tracey. If they hurt her…well, the thought didn’t even bear thinking. No one touched anything he owed a debt too. No one.

He raced towards the house, fully aware of darts flying left and right. He might not have eyes at the back of his head, but he seemed to have a sixth sense of sort, being able to tell when the air behind him was disturbed. Still, once he pushed through the door and into the dark interior of the house, he was glad for it. He dashed down the darkened hallway at breakneck speed. He'd just stepped around the last corner marking the entry to the kitchen, when he was flung backwards. His back connected with the wall. Pain shot through his body, nearly cancelling out his rage. His ears rang from something, drowning out any other noise around him.

He blinked, trying to lift his head. The world slowly tilted sideways. Why? Everything wasn’t supposed to be sideways, it was supposed right-side-up! As everything slowly turned in his vision, he also noticed how dark edges seemed to creep in. Had night fallen? "Can someone turn on the light?" He insisted, but what actually came out of his mouth might've been more along the lines of _canshmontulighs_. Utter gibberish, that's what it was.

A huge eye appeared in his line of sight. It seemed to hover, blink almost nervously at him, before it slowly morphed into an almost familiar face. He swatted at the image as a somewhat mad giggle escaped his mouth. Then, everything went dark.

He closed his eyes, listening to the roar of the ocean inside his head. He counted the beats of it, dum-dum-dum-dum, almost soothing in their intensity.

"If you get any closer," Harry could hear the Doctor's voice threaten. Gone was all the humour, the good-natured tone. Ice-cold would describe it aptly. Or maybe, ice-cold fury? For there was a fire there too which was quite unsettling, because what if that kind of passion would ever be directed at him? "If you get any closer, Jack," the Doctor continued. "I'll pick up that discarded weapon and I'll shoot you."

"Tracey," Harry mumbled. He couldn’t see, everything was swimming in utter darkness, but before he drifted too far off-shore, he wanted to know if she was all right. It was so long since someone had aided him out of the goodness of her heart. He owed her. He wasn’t going to stand for repaying her that debt by getting her injured.

"She's fine," the Doctor reassured him. "You stepped right into the path of the explosion. She got knocked around a bit, but you took the brunt of it."

Normally, he wouldn’t just take someone's word for it, but he did trust the Doctor. If he said Tracey was unharmed, then he believed it, even when his logical mind told him not to trust a liar. For the Doctor lies, right? How did he know that?

"Look," Jack's pleading tone only halted Harry's decent for a few seconds. "This wasn’t my idea. I actually tried to warn you. If you'd picked up your phone…"

"So this is my fault?" The Doctor hissed. "I thought we had a deal!"

"We did!" Jack yelled back. "Martha traced my vortex manipulator. The energy signature is quite unique."

"Master?"

Harry didn’t respond. Recognition tingled within him, some part wanted to reply to the name, even if yet another part couldn’t help sniggering at the nerve of calling himself by such a title.

"Don’t you leave me, not now…" the Doctor continued to plead. "Harry?"

This time, Harry twitched. Or at least he did on the inside, he had no clue if the same happened outside his mind. Something brushed against his awareness, something foreign and yet familiar, it scared him so much, he retreated. He ran until he found the darkest corner of his mind, and then, he settled there, thinking this was a safe spot to spend some time. No one would find him there.


	3. Chapter 3

If contentment could be a net, then he was surely caught in it. A soft, pleasant hum penetrated his body, his consciousness even, lulling him into a restful sleep. It wasn’t a singing voice, it wasn’t like the hum of a ship, its floors vibrating with engines firing, no, _it_ was something else. A presence, a personality, an _entity_ , but it wasn’t anything he could touch. It wasn’t just in his mind. It was everywhere. It surrounded him. Its welcoming presence wrapped around him like a blanket, giving him warmth and comfort.

_I forgive you._

The words weren’t spoken, and yet, he still knew she had said them. They weren’t put into his head either. They travelled through the air, one with the rhythm all around him. It was most bizarre, and yet, oddly familiar.

_Just don’t do it again._

Despite the simple words, they carried a threat. It wasn’t what was being said, it was how the words were formed, how they were communicated into is mind. _The tone very much makes the music._

Minutes, hour, centuries for all he knew, passed until he found the will inside him to open his eyes. His eye lids fluttered tentatively at first until he finally managed to go all the way. The soft light didn’t hurt his eyes, even though he thought it should. Still, he blinked several times to give his eyes some time to adjust to the sudden brightness.

He could almost see the strange presence around him. If he didn’t know any better, he would compare it to floating inside water. Whatever was communicating with him, she was all around him. It wasn’t necessarily air he breathed, it was her essence. Wherever he was, she was the air, she was the floorboards, she was the walls, he was inside her, for lack of any other words.

This notion should've alarmed him. It didn’t. He sat up, shifting so he could dangle his legs over the edge of the bed. Strange looking symbols flashed across a display behind him. _Vitals normal._ He frowned. He had no clue how he could read the circles and glyphs, but he was pretty certain this was what it had said. Maybe not so much in those simple words, but it pretty much summed up the gist of it. Whatever had knocked him out, it was gone for good.

He should be alarmed. He should be worried. If not for Tracey, then for his own well-being. He wasn’t. Excitement ran through him coupled with wariness, and an assurance that if anyone dared to harm him or anything he cared about, his retribution wold be swift and final. He was that sort of a man.

He got up. His legs shook a little bit, but he didn’t fall. The first few steps he took, he took cautiously, but he did make it to the door without falling face first onto the floor. As expected, the moment he got close, the doors opened. When he stepped outside, he found himself in a seemingly endless stretching corridor. He couldn’t see where it began or ended. Despite the lack of a window, he was pretty certain he wasn’t anywhere familiar. There wasn’t anything outright weird about the walls, or the shape of the construct, it just wasn’t _normal_ by the standard he'd gotten used to. It wasn't human, for lack of any other proper word to use.

The thought should alarm him, right? For if it wasn’t human, then it had to be alien. And yet, much like before, he only felt a sliver of apprehension, nothing else. At random, he picked a direction to follow. He could've sworn the hallway would go on forever, when suddenly an end was in sight. If he didn’t know any better, he would assume everything had suddenly shifted to meet his needs.

He entered the even stranger looking, resembling more a crazy person's idea of a control room than anything else. Weird looking machines, bits and pieces were everywhere. Nothing should make any sense, and yet, he could've sworn he would be able to make heads and tails of it if he actually walked up to it and _tried_.

"You're awake!" The Doctor appeared from the side. "Why didn’t you tell me? Naughty girl!" Who the Doctor was talking to, Harry didn’t know. He figured though, he would cut the guy some slack since they had clearly left _Kansas_ behind.

"What's all this?" Harry asked cautiously.

"My Tardis," the Doctor answered. "She seems to like you again," he added somewhat puzzled. "I would've thought she would've tried to eject you by now. She sure as hell kicked up a fuss when I summoned her. I had to leave her behind, you know," the Doctor went on with his rambling. "She didn’t really want me to find you. But when you lost consciousness, she came to me. I must've been frantic enough for her to actually get over herself."

The lights flickered in an annoyed sort of way.

"Anyway, thankfully she came alone. I don’t know what I would've done if River had tagged along. Still, she's resourceful. Better not land anywhere any time soon. She might track us."

Harry hadn't really tuned the Doctor out, but he wasn’t really actively listening either. Instead, he walked towards the door. He hesitated only for a split second, before he yanked it open. Space, darkness, weirdness, greeted him. He should be surprised. He should be afraid. Actually, he was pretty certain he should be cowering in a corner somewhere, shaking with fright. Or at least demand an explanation. Yet, his nerves were barley quivering. He would like to attribute this to nerves of steels, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his lack of surprise had more to do with the fact that he'd seen all of this before. Still, shouldn’t at least _that_ notion alarm him? Was there something wrong with him? Why was he this calm?

"You shouldn’t leave the doors open too long while we're in the vortex. We're protected, it's just not good."

Harry shrugged. Then, he did as told. He turned, leaning against them. He leisurely crossed his legs, so he could relax even more.

The Doctor fidgeted with this sweater. He took a tentative step towards him before he aborted the move. Harry raised an eye brow. "Why do I get the distinct impression, I'm not only missing a page out of a book, I'm actually missing the whole beginning of a series?"

"You really don’t remember anything from before? What's your first memory?"

"A field," Harry replied. "And Tracey."

The Doctor gaped. "But that's…that's…you've been on Earth for weeks! What did those bastards do to you?"

Harry raised his eye brow again. He swallowed hard. "Did someone do this to me?" he asked calmly, his voice carrying a hint of edge. "You promised that Tracey is unharmed. She is, right?"

"No hair was harmed on her head, you have my word," the Doctor added almost like an afterthought. His eyes focused on him with all their intensity. "I'm more worried about you. They must've done something to you to cause your amnesia. I doubt you woke up like this. Because if you had, then you would remember _them_!"

"And, pray tell, who's them?" Harry calm voice belied the torrent raging inside him. Someone had done something to him? His serenity from before seemed to evaporate the longer he thought about it. He'd always assumed his amnesia was due to an accident, or maybe some sort of traumatic stress. But if it wasn’t, then someone was going to pay for it. No one messed with his mind and got away with it. No one. There was one more thing he needed to clarify. Just to be sure.

"I did shoot the American president," Harry said. "I always thought so, regardless of what Tracey said. I mean, me being possessed is clearly just stupid. Right up there with aliens from Mars." Harry sniggered.

The Doctor actually looked confused. "You don’t believe in Aliens."

"No?" Was this a trick question?

"But you're totally OK with travelling in a space ship, with opening the doors and staring straight into the vortex mid-flight. That's not weird at all." The sarcasm in his voice made Harry's right eye tick with annoyance. If put this way, his reaction did sound rather odd.

"There's no such things as aliens. I believe in what I can see. I believe in science."

"Surely, you more than most, should understand that science is a lot more than what meets the eye. The universe is vast; there is so much out there, even given 100 life times, we still wouldn’t be able to see it all."

"It's a pretty huge leap from accepting life out there somewhere to believing aliens messed with me personally."

The Doctor's mouth opened and closed. He looked like a fish out of water. It wasn’t a flattering look on him.

"Can you figure out if something was done to me?" Harry asked. Never mind all this talk of bloody aliens. If someone deliberately messed with his mind, then he wanted to know. No, he needed to know. How else was he supposed to get even?

"I could," the Doctor admitted. "Do I have permission to enter your mind?"

Harry's gaze settled on the Doctor's earnest face. He chewed on his lower lip. Allow the Doctor into his mind? What if found something he didn’t actually want to share? He looked away for a brief second before his sharp gaze settled on the Doctor's young face again.

"Do it," he ordered.

"Right now?" The Doctor squeaked. "We should go back to the med bay. I need equipment to monitor your vitals. Or at least, we should go somewhere more comfortable…"

"If you put me into a bed, I can guarantee you, we'll be busy with anything but entering my mind." Harry levelled a lewd look onto the Doctor's startled expression. He was rewarded with the guy stuttering," Well, I don’t know…all right…"

When the Doctor seemed to be frozen on the spot, a stark contrast to his usual rather self-assured manner, Harry decided to take matters into his own hands. Time was wasting, and he'd rather known sooner than later who did this to him.

"Now," he demanded, closing the distance between them. He stepped into the Doctor's space, ignoring the man's startled squeak, before moulding his body to his. He touched his forehead to the Doctor's, and then he waited. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long.

The Doctor's cool hands came to rest on his temples. From one breath to the next, the world fell away once more. Instead of darkness, warmth welcomed him. The feelings the Doctor had for him ran deep. They followed no pattern. They seemed to have no beginning or end. Love warred with hatred, with contempt, while at the same time, overpowering forgiveness rushed his way. He'd always thought the Doctor was a complex man, ever since he'd laid eyes on him a few hours ago. The vast mix of emotions confirmed it though. 

And there was more, so much more.


	4. Chapter 4

When he opened his eyes again, the world looked different. Gone was simply looking at a wall, and seeing nothing but a bricks and mortar. Now, time paths swirled before him, every move could possibly lead to a different outcome, the opportunities were almost unimaginable vast. Who the hell would want to bet his overwhelmed with information?

But the crux of it was, he wasn’t overburdened by it. It felt exhilarating to travel done one path, to look for its outcome, and to theorize how to make it happen. The knowledge was raw power. So much better than wielding a gun, or running for office. Whatever _this_ was, it was almost god-like.

"You're awake."

Harry shifted, taking a step back. For a brief moment, his knees threatened to give out underneath him. Sheer will power kept him from showing any kind of weakness before the Doctor. He'd been wrong, he mused. It wasn’t something he readily would ever admit to, not even to himself.

Everything was still a bit distorted in his mind, well, strike that, it was a right mess, but from the moment the Doctor had jumped on him, he'd been certain the guy was attracted to him. What his memories had showed him so far, spoke to the contrary. 

"We were friends," Harry slowly stated. Maybe if he mentioned a few key things out loud, they would slot into place and stop the torrent of images flooding his mind.

"The best of friends," the Doctor admitted. Harry didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling. "Like brothers."

"But we aren't related."

"Well, no," the Doctor's puzzlement could be clearly heard in his voice.

Harry, still avoiding eye contact, took yet another step back. Then he turned. He walked up to the console so he could place both his hands onto it. For a few seconds, he closed his eyes. 

"We had a falling out," he continued. He opened his eyes again. The past played across his mind, almost as if he was watching a movie unfold before him. "You betrayed me," he added. "You were supposed to come back for me. We had plans. We wanted to travel the stars together. You stole the Tardis, this one actually," Harry's fingers kneaded the hard surface. "but you just ran. You didn’t come back until years later."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. Harry could hear clothes shuffling. Without moving, he could tell the Doctor had walked up to him, his hand hovering over his back as if he was trying to decide if he should dare though him or not. "It was a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding," Harry spat. "What was there to misinterpret?" His shoulders tensed, his knuckles turned so white he was afraid he might actually injure himself if he didn’t ease the pressure a little bit.

"Your family," the Doctor answered as if this would explain everything.

"My what now?" Harry yelled. He pushed back, right into the Doctor, who stumbled backwards. Harry reached out, not to steady him, but so he could shake him a few times before shoving him backwards with force. This time, the guy did land on his ass. To give him credit, he didn’t stay down long. For someone so harmless-looking, he sure knew how to move.

Harry shivered. The memories weren’t in order. It was as if someone had unlocked a huge attic, letting everything tumble outwards before giving it a good shake. Or as if his house of memories had gotten shaken by an earthquake, razing it to the ground. He knew everything was there now, but he just couldn’t make proper heads or tails out of it.

"You had a future," the Doctor hastily added, realizing he was running out of time. Harry slowly advanced, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "If you ran away with me, you wouldn’t be able to go back. I was already a loner. My family had already disowned me. But you? I couldn’t do this to you. I wanted to protect you…"

"You wanted to protect me?" Harry spat.

The Doctor swallowed hard. Harry balled his fingers into a fist. He raised his arm, hitting the Doctor right in the face. With a pained howl, the guy stumbled backwards again. With his still raised fist, Harry stood there, basking in the knowledge of having sent the Doctor to the ground.

Then, slowly, he put the arm down. His anger ebbed away, as if someone had opened up a hole, draining him off it. Tiredness settled into his bones instead.

"I hate you," he whispered. "You ruined what could've been epic."

He walked away without a backward glance. It didn’t even occur to him, to contemplate letting bygones be bygones. The hallway shifted before him again, but he had no real destination in mind. When the Doctor's Tardis showed him into a garden, he decided to enter it. It was presumptuous of her to assume he needed something soothing, but he was too tired to go traipsing around for something else. When he stumbled over a stone, he went down. He rolled onto his back so he could stare up at the fake starlight. He folded his arms behind his head, making his position marginally more comfortable.

"I could forgive you," he mused out loud. "It's time, right?" He asked no one in particular. His mind boggled as he tried to accept the fact he'd been alive for centuries. Maybe spending a little while thinking he was human, had soften his hearts. Or maybe escaping form the time lock had changed him. Maybe knowing his madness had been induced, maybe either one of these things had altered him on some fundamental level. One thing he knew for certain. He hated being used, being made a fool of.

Did it really matter though? He could forgive the Doctor for what happened centuries ago. They'd both been young and foolish. He might even accept acting out of proportion. But for him, the situation had been different. He recalled now having been in love. His attraction wasn’t new. Sure, fancying the Doctor's body was new, but being in love with his brilliant mind wasn’t. But his feelings weren’t reciprocated. Otherwise the Doctor would've never been able to leave him behind.

And he'd always been the kind of man, or Time Lord, who thought and acted in absolutes. He didn’t do grey. You were either against him or for him. Giving his hearts to someone who'd thrown his affection in his face, well, no wonder his love had turned to hate. Still, shouldn’t it have clued the Doctor in that something was underfoot when all this time he never really tried to kill him? Sure, hurt him, maim him, torture him, hell, kill him so he would regenerate, but he never actually tried to kill him for good. He could have. Especially on the Valiant. He could've made sure the Doctor died, and stayed that way. Instead, they had chosen to play.

So yes, Harry could forgive him. It was properly time for him to move on too. He'd dwelled on the past long enough. But forget? No, he wasn’t the type of man who could ever forget being betrayed. This wasn’t something they would ever get past.

"I'm sorry." True to his self, the Doctor had no self-preservation. Anyone with a hint of sanity would've known to avoid him at all cost. Instead, the idiot had sought him out. The Doctor laid down on the ground next to him. "I am really sorry," he repeated.

"I know," Harry eventually said. He recognized now the name _the Master_. He vividly recalled being Koschei too. But, with everything still so new in his mind, with everything still trying to settle, he found he still very much thought of himself as Harry. "I think it's time to move on," he added.

He wasn’t prepared for what the Doctor said next. Frankly, it shouldn’t have surprised him, but apparently, he really didn’t have all his marbles where they should be.

"I can hear an echo of your drums."

Harry shifted so he was lying on his side, using his right elbow to prop up his head so he could stare at the Doctor. "You can hear them?"

"Just an echo," the Doctor admitted. "Sometimes they are really loud, like a presence pressing on my mind."

"I can't hear them at all," Harry confessed. His forehead crinkled. He should've realized that. He strained his hearing, listening intently. But he heard nothing out of the ordinary.

"We need to look into that," the Doctor added. "There's more to the drums than just Rassilion messing with your mind."

Why this should matter to Harry, he couldn’t fathom. _He_ couldn’t hear them anymore. Should he really care if the Doctor could? It wasn’t as if the Doctor had ever listened to him. He might not have actually asked for his help, but being written off as mad straight away rankled. As his old friend, shouldn’t he have at least given him the benefit of the doubt? Well, he might still be a bit miffed about that.

Harry hummed. He wasn’t ready to commit to anything.

"Can we call a seize fire?" the Doctor ask, hope evident in his voice. "Can you stay? Will you help me with this?"

Harry didn’t want to get involved. Sure, he missed the Doctor, he couldn’t deny the siren call that was his presence. But it hadn’t really worked in his favour in the past to get close to him, why should he repeat his mistake?

"I don’t know what happened to your Tardis, but if you help me, I promise I find a way for you travel again. You have my word."

Harry stared at the Doctor. Would he really give him the means to travel the universe again? After all he'd done?

"You're a different man," the Doctor answered his unspoken question. "We all got things we aren’t proud of. I don’t want to lock you up. I wouldn’t know where, unless I shoved you into a room here on the Tardis. And we both know, she would let you out the moment my back is turned. So, unless I kill you for good, the only thing I can ask for is your word not to go out and wreak havoc again."

"You would believe me if I told you so?"

"Yes," the Doctor easily replied. "You might be a many things, but you've always kept your word."

Harry still didn’t want to help the Doctor. He hadn’t helped him when he needed it. He'd betrayed him, well, the list of what the Doctor had done was long. But, Harry knew he wasn’t without fault. Sure, the initial betrayal he could firmly rest at the Doctor's feet. But his actions after that were his own.

And he couldn’t ignore the taunting possibility of being able to travel again. Sure, the Doctor couldn’t guarantee it. How was he supposed to produce a Tardis the Master could use? But the Doctor's promise would go a long way. And frankly, the Master was a bit tired at the moment. As exhilarating as sparring with the Doctor was, dedicating much more of his life to such a pursuit seemed stupid. Without the haunting presence of the drums, he could do what he wanted. Not even the sky was the limit.

"I will help you with the drums," he carefully said. "And you have my word not to actively seek out trouble." 

The phrasing was held deliberately vague. Something flashed across the Doctor's face. The guy wasn’t stupid enough not to catch on. But if he wanted the Master's help, he would agree to his demands.

"I accept."

Even if he wanted to, the Master couldn’t stop the wicked grin breaking out across his face. In his glee, he didn’t even realize, he'd started to think of himself as _the Master_.

What would the future hold for them? Many would think theirs was an unholy union, a deal struck with the devil. But the Master couldn’t help but vibrate with anticipation of what was to come. This was the first time the universe would encounter the Doctor and the Master actively working together. Was the world ready for this?

Probably not. The Master rubbed his hands together. And this would make it even more fun!


	5. Chapter 5

"Unholy union, my ass," the Master thought. With venom, he added, "Universe beware!"

He levelled a glare at the Doctor's shoulders, which would've sent a lesser being cowering in a corner. Of course, since this was the Doctor, not only did he not realize the danger he was in, he also didn’t seem to have a care in the world. The guy was humming, moving around as if he had a happy stick up his ass, while getting nothing done.

"I think we've established that your library is of no use," the Master drawled when he couldn’t stand to watch the Doctor pull down yet another dusty tome. He thought even the Tardis was trying to tell the Doctor something because he was convinced that with every hour they spent in here, the dust levels were rising exponentially.

He sneezed. He rubbed his nose, sending another pointed look at his…his mind stuttered to a halt. What should he call him? _Friend_? They weren’t friends. Too much had happened, and Harry wasn’t one to forgive easily, if ever at all. _Partners_ made Harry think of hours spent in bed, exploring each other. This wasn’t going to happen. _Companion_ then? He'd rather eat worms than call the Doctor by the term he was so fond of for using for his pet humans. This, however, left Harry with nothing really to call the Doctor apart from _hey you_.

"I'm sure there's information hidden here that we can use," the Doctor defended his current mission.

"Your little library," Harry snarled, "barely contains anything important. Now, if someone we know hadn't actually destroyed the best library in the universe, then we would've probably solved the problem long ago."

The Doctor looked up. "I didn’t destroy the Library," he answered. "The Vashta Nerada are the reason no one can go back there."

Harry frowned. What was he on about? "The time-lock, you idiot," Harry clarified. "Or have you forgotten about the huge library on Gallifrey?"

The Doctor stuttered to a halt. His face paled. For a few seconds, it looked as if he was going to say something. Then, he opened the book and made a show out of sticking his nose into it. Harry sighed. He'd tried yesterday, the day before, and even the day before that. For a week now they'd been stuck in here researching anything in relations to _drums_. Honestly, how daft did the Doctor think he was? If Harry had thought for a second there was any useful information in this library, he would've seized it long ago. Contrary to popular believe, he'd never relished in hearing drums. He'd found a way to use them, otherwise he would've really gone totally, irrevocably mad, but, if given a choice, he would've always chosen to have them removed.

And since Rassilion induced them in the first place, it would stand to reason that their origin were on Galifrey. Or at least, their home planet would contain more information on them. Harry understood why they couldn’t go there. He still had no clue how he'd gotten out of the time-lock. He'd never suggest even considering breaking the lock, not even for this. But, shouldn’t they be expanding their search? This was pointless.

He tapped out a rhythm on the table.

"You're not willing to reconsider this?" He asked, trying his best to keep his voice level, to hide his frustration.

"We haven't exhausted this option yet. I'm not moving on until I'm sure there's nothing contained here we can use," the Doctor answered without looking up.

"You're not even willing to entertain other options right now?"

"No," the Doctor answered.

Harry could practically hear the reason behind the Doctor's refusal. He didn’t yet want to share the Master with the world. But if he stayed cooped up here any long, Harry would really go mental. And if he didn’t have an outlet, well, the Doctor was practically begging him to get tortured.

This wouldn’t do. He was turning over a new leaf. There would only be torture involved if he had the time to enjoy it, and if it was necessary. He might enjoy it, but it wasn’t necessary yet.

"Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you," he mumbled.

"What?" The Doctor raised his head just as Harry dumped an extra heavy book on the back of his head. Without any further sound, the Doctor slump forward, unconscious.

"Now," Harry rubbed his hands together. "Let's get this party started.

He quickly tied the Doctor to his chair. Some might say he'd come prepared, since he'd been carrying around rope for the last day. When this was done, he dragged the unconscious Time Lord into the control room. Since he didn’t end up trapped, or shot into space, the Doctor's Tardis must be siding with him. How odd.

He pushed the Doctor into a corner so Harry wouldn’t trip over him before he approached the consol. He placed his hands onto it, listening. When nothing negative came his way, when he wasn’t electrocuted on the spot, he figured the Tardis must've realized the Doctor had been stalling. Or she was at least smart enough to know that making Harry even more bored would've been even worse.

He quickly set the co-ordinates. Nothing happened. A little whirring sound drew his attention. He felt something akin to mental push directing him towards one of the Doctor's stashes. He pulled out the box, rummaging through it.

"A vortex manipulator?" He asked. He held it up questioningly. "Why would you want me to use it when we could just travel there in style?" he asked the ship.

No answer came to him. With a huff, he got up. The controls flickered before something akin to a mental blanked was pulled over them. He could still see them, but he couldn’t quite touch them.

"Oh, come on," he yelled. "That's cheating!"

The Tardis hummed happily. Apparently, the ship was happy to assist him up to a point. But it wasn’t going to allow anyone to pilot her who wasn’t the Doctor.

"You know I can't just strap this on and use it from within the vortex," he said out loud. "You'll have to land somewhere for me to use it."

He could practically sense her amusement at his predicament followed by the insistence that he should keep looking at the device. This was one sentiment he shared with the Doctor. Travelling with this crude instrument was just horrid. Not only was it inelegant, it was also totally beneath a Time Lord.

"Hm." He carefully looked at it. Someone seemed to have modified it. Could it be? "How did he manage it?" He mused out loud. "OK, here's to nothing," he said to himself. He put it on, pressing the button.

Apparently this thing could only go two directions: off the ship to a set receiver, and back onto the Tardis. He had no proof, but he was pretty certain he knew where this thing was going to point. And if he was right (he was rarely wrong), then it would lead him exactly where he wanted to go in the first place.

Travelling by this stupid thing was like being dropped from a great height. He spread his legs a little bit when he arrived, fighting for balance. 

"Oh, so good. Yes, keep hitting that spot. Yes, keep going. Faster, harder."

Harry's eyes widened. Then he blanched. "My eyes!" He cried.

"You!" Jack pulled out, turning sideways so he could face Harry. Despite wanting to unsee everything he'd just been forced to witness, he couldn’t stop his eyes from being lowered. Jack's cock really was impressive. The fully engorged dick was curving upwards, pre-come leaking from the head. Harry's eyes flickered to the other guy's ass, clearly on display. He couldn’t avoid staring at the hole where Jack's dick had been moments ago.

He shuddered. He couldn’t help himself. Surely, this was revulsion. He swallowed hard. He raised his hand to shield his eyes.

"What do you want?"

Harry couldn’t answer.

"Well, give me a minute."

"A minute?" The other guy complained. "No!"

Seconds later, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh started up again. Groans filled the room, and the stink of sex saturated the air once more. Before Harry could actually gather his thoughts to react to the affront, Jack cried out. Harry forgot about keeping his eyes averted. He stared at Jack's ass. The taunt globes quivered. His hips snapped forward, fucking the nameless guy on his knees with all he had.

Harry swallowed hard. He wasn’t aroused. He wasn’t turned on. Of course, he wasn’t. He was…appalled, yes that was what he was. It was so rude to continue with this while a stranger was in the room! The freak of course had no shame. Why was he still looking? Why hadn't he turned around? Why was he staring at the little bit of cock he could see whenever Jack pulled out and shoved back in? Why was his throat so dry? Why were his hearts beating frantically in his chest?

When Jack came, it felt as if the Earth trembled. The guy underneath him shuddered in tandem. Then, Jack pulled out. Harry didn’t know what to do. He continued to stare. When Jack pulled up his jeans, tugging his now flaccid cock away, Harry looked up again for the first time. The knowing smirk on Jack's handsome face raised his irritation to dangerous levels.

"You know," Jack drawled. "If you're really this affronted at having witnessed this, you should've turned around. You're the one after all who showed up unannounced."

"Who's he?" The guy on the bed asked. Harry paid him no heed. "He looks familiar. Is he going to join us too? I wouldn’t mind," the guy added almost like an afterthought. "He's pretty enough. Where have I seen him before?"

"We're leaving," Harry declared. He didn’t want to go back to the Tardis yet, so he herded Jack out of the room, leaving a protesting man behind.

"What do you want?" Jack asked.

"Why haven’t you shot me yet?" Harry asked instead. He frowned. Jack had ample reasons to come after him. His memories were still dancing all over the place, but he was pretty certain Jack was supposed to hate his guts.

"If I do that, the Doctor isn’t going to talk to me again. But I reserve the right to change my mind. Now, what do you want? Where is the Doctor?" Jack looked around. When no other Time Lord magically appeared, he narrowed his eyes at Harry. "What have you done with him?"

"Nothing," Harry waved him off. "He's tied up at the moment. I figured, it was time to look outside the box. He's way too stuffy, too stuck in his ways."

Jack raised an eye brow. "You've come to me for sex advice?" He asked. "I'm torn, or should I be horrified? I can't decide." Jack rubbed his jaw, tilting his head slightly so he could give Harry a curious look.

Harry gaped. "As if I need advice form an ape like you!" He shouted. He adjusted his shirt. "I know what do with my dick, thank you very much. Unlike some people I know," he muttered.

"So the Doctor sent you then?"

"What?" Harry actually felt colour raise in his cheeks. "No!" He quickly added. "Is everything about sex with you then?"

Jack simply continued to stare at him. Fair enough, Harry thought, he should've known the answer to that question.

"If you aren’t here about sex, then what do you want?"

Truthfully, Harry was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his plan. Then again, the Doctor's plan had ended with them cooped up in the library for over a week. Surely, any plan would be better than going back to more tomes and dust.

"You care about the Doctor," Harry told Jack. "You are aware I used to hear the drums."

"Used to?" Harry could easily detect a hint of alarm in Jack's voice.

"Yes, used to," he confirmed. "Since I came back, they've been blessedly quiet. However, it would seem they are now echoing through the Doctor's head. He's also convinced there's more to them than just being used as an anchor by Rassilion."

"What?"

Harry waved Jack off. He didn’t have the time to explain everything right now. "We've tried looking this up in the Doctor's library, but there isn’t anything there." Harry rolled his eyes to emphasize the point he was trying to make. "I told the Doctor his endeavour was pointless days ago. And yet, he keeps insisting to go through every single book he owns." He levelled a look at Jack. "You should know how dangerous it is to let me get bored."

Jack's eyes widened a little bit.

"I tried to get the idiot to consider alternative methods. Sure, thanks to him, we can't go to the source."

"Which is?"

"Gallifrey."

Harry could see Jack swallowing hard.

"Why have you come to me then? It's not as if I know anything about any of this."

"You have access to the time agency. You can get us into their vaults."

"What?"

"It pains me to say it, but apart from us, there's only one other place that keeps time records. Since the Doctor insists about the drums being linked to the _drums of time_ , we need to consult with records that have any bearing on the subject matter!" Harry raised his voice. He couldn’t help it. "He's currently reading up on anything not even remotely connected to time. You know how stubborn he is."

"You want us three to break into the time agency."

"No," Harry corrected. "If we go back to the Doctor now, he'll only splutter and complain. We are going to do it on our own. Once we've found what we need, we can go back."

"I won't go behind my friend's back," Jack insisted. "I won't betray him."

Harry through his arms up into the air. He wanted to shake the stupid freak. He took a deep breath. Jack might be many things, but he was one of the few beings who could match them when it came to stubbornness. He could always bash his head in later. Just for fun.

"Right now, your friend is suffering from the drums. Maybe not like I did, but he's under their influence. Now, he might still be thinking clearly, but do you really want to waste any more time trying to change his mind? You know how easy that will be, right? Besides, isn’t it easier to break into a highly guarded facility with less people? I'd rather explain myself to him _after_ we've gotten the information than to try and convince him beforehand. Don’t you?"

Jack's face contorted in displeasure. Harry watched, transfixed for some reason, as Jack chewed on his lower lip. Contrary to what many people thought, he hadn't actually touched Jack during his year of captivity. Sure, he'd tortured him a little bit, but he hadn't sexually assaulted him. He might be many things, but he wasn’t a rapist. He might be known to like it a little rough once in a while, but in all his life, he'd never taken anyone against his or her will sexually.

This didn’t mean he hadn't enjoyed playing with Jack. And unless he was totally mistaken, there had been times when Jack had actually enjoyed a little pain. After all, Harry clearly recalled having seen Jack's unmistakable hard on before. Come to think of it, he realized, Jack had only ever gotten hard when Harry had been personally involved in torturing him.

He gave Jack a curious look. Jack tilted his head, obviously unable to read Harry's thoughts. Harry swallowed hard. He wasn’t prepared to go there. This was just too weird.

"So, will you help me? Or better," he amended, "will you help the Doctor?"

"Why are you helping him?"

"We've struck a bargain," Harry easily answered. "And I'm not really keen on getting the drums back. The only way we can be sure for them never to come back, is to understand what they are. And if this means helping the Doctor, then I am all for it."

He had no clue what he would do if the goals wouldn't align anymore. But that was something to think about on a different day.

"What's your answer then?" Harry asked again.

"I'll help you," Jack answered.

Somewhere, Harry was certain, a small universe just imploded. Not only was he working with the Doctor, he was also now working with one of his most trusted Companions. What would come next? Marriage vows?

He shuddered.


	6. Chapter 6

"I don’t like this plan," Harry complained. When had the master of all things smart gotten reduced to this? Maybe he should re-think not wanting to hear the drums. If this was the outcome, he might actually prefer them.

"Don't whine," Jack told him with a smirk. "It's the only way we won't draw any attention to us."

"I think you're wrong," Harry declared haughtily. "Surely, there must be a different way to access the vaults. We could stake out the place, sneak in."

"And how long do think that will take?"

Harry shrugged. He tugged at the hem of his see-through shirt. Clearly any waiting period would be preferable to this.

"Look," Jack amended. Harry could totally hear the smirk in his voice. If he looked up, and saw the leer plastered on Jack's face, he would grab his head, and press his thumbs into his eyes. Nothing lost there, right? Jack would die, and come back fully healed. But at least it might persuade him to see reason! Besides, he couldn’t recall he last time he'd actually tried to kill anyone. The thought made him depressed. What if he was losing his touch?

Jack continued, "In this time period, I'm still working for them. So, my retina scan will get me access. And they know me well enough that I like to take my conquests back to the office for a little shag. No one will think twice about me bring a rent boy with me for some fun."

"Couldn't I just be some normal guy you picked up in a bar?" Harry tried again.

"This would raise too many questions. We want simple. With this outfit, anyone looking at you will know immediately what we're on about. We won't have to stop and explain ourselves. And once we're in, you said you can hack into the secure area. My access isn't high enough to get us there otherwise."

The Master finally looked up. Jack, seemingly unaffected, stared back at him. "Fine," Harry grunted. "We'll do it your way. But if you ever speak of this to anyone, I will rip out every organ while you're still alive. And you know I'm good for it."

Jack, for some reason, gave him a charming smile. Then, he crossed the distance, and ruffled Harry's short hair. "I always knew you liked me," Jack whispered into his ear.

Harry's mouth gaped open. When Jack smacked him on his ass, Harry sprang into action. He hurled around. He grabbed Jack and shoved him face first into the nearest wall. Jack kicked back, trying to dislodge him, but Harry had the advantage. He pressed his body close to Jack's, pinning the man to the wall. Then, he leaned in, whispering into his ear. "If you ever do it again, I swear to you, I will find a way to cut off your dick and keep you alive for centuries while you bemoan its absence."

Jack swallowed hard. Then, he gave a small nod. Harry noticed a shiver running through his captive's body. Harry's cock twitched in his rather too tight leather pants. Since they were so tight, and since he was pressed rather indecently against Jack's back side, the guy couldn’t help but notice.

"You know," Jack said thoughtfully. "I know you Time Lords can regulate your body functions. It might be a good idea though, to make yourself at least half hard. You're supposed to be turned on by me, right?"

To proof some strange point, Jack wiggled, managing somehow to press his ass even closer to Harry's crotch. Harry's cock clearly liked the idea because it started to fill. As if he was holding hot coals, Harry let go of Jack, taking a few steps backwards before he could stop himself. Since what Jack had said was true, he relaxed his body until he was totally limp again.

"What a shame," Jack drawled, giving Harry's crotch a pointed look. "It would really add credence to our cover story. Think about it," Jack slowly moved closer. When had their roles gotten reversed? When had Jack become the predator and Harry the prey?

"Do you need any help?" Jack asked. Before Harry could react, Jack was close enough to place the palm of his hand onto Harry's clothed dick. Then, totally ignoring the danger he was in, Jack started to massage Harry's cock through the fabric. When Harry tried to take a step backwards, Jack grabbed him by the hips, keeping him in place.

Sure, Harry was stronger than a mere human, even a human who had ended up as a fixed point in time. But somehow, Harry wasn’t able to force his body into doing anything useful. Well, apart from one bit, which seemed to be rather happy about the attention it was getting.

"There," Jack cooed. "This will look more authentic, don’t you think?"

Harry glared. It would be easy for him to just deflate his stupid cock again. Despite what it might look like, he still had the will power to control his impulses. But, as much as it hurt him to admit, Jack was right. The clothes were good. No one would look at him and not think _ass-for-hire_. However, if since the pants were so tight, anyone would notice straight away his lack of an erection.

"If I'm supposed to walk with this," Harry snarled, "then so do you." _Eye for an eye_ took on a whole new meaning. Maybe, Harry mused, it should be called _cock for cock_. He ignored the rather pleased look on Jack's face as he reached out, returning the favour. He palmed Jack's shaft through his thin cotton pants, getting a much better feel for the dick than Jack had been able to get from him. When Jack was more than just a little bit half hard, putting a nice dent into the fabric for everyone to see, Harry removed his hand.

Suddenly, Jack grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him forward. Their lips met. Harry gasped, taken by surprise. Jack forced his tongue into Harry's mouth, trying to kiss the Master into some kind of submission. Not to be outdone, Harry shoved Jack backwards again until the man's back connected with the wall once more. He stepped into the human's space, wedging his leg in between Jack's already spread legs. He raised his thigh so he could rub against the now fully hardened cock.

Jack shuddered, seemingly going pliant underneath the Master's ministrations. Harry made a sound of pleasure at the thought of finally being in control again. He didn’t really pay any attention to Jack's hands. He didn’t care when they shoved up his see-through shirt. Nor did he care when Jack pressed his thumbs underneath the hem of his leather trousers. He barely reacted when the pressure on his own cock decreased, too focused on rubbing his thigh against Jack's dick.

He moved away from assaulting Jack's mouth, starting to nibble on the man's very sensitive ear. Jack groaned, a sound with was like throwing gasoline on fire, at least for Harry. He hummed in pleasure as he let go of the lobe, moving on to bury his face in the crook of Jack's neck.

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when a strong hand suddenly took his cock in hand. "What the…?" he mumbled, jerking backwards. Jack's other hand though was on the small of his back, pressing him forward once more.

He groaned, his eyes fluttering shut as Jack started to stroke him. The friction on his shaft was just the right mix between pleasure and pain, considering that there was no lube involved. His legs quivered.

He should stop this. He should've never let it get this far. And yet, his mind seemed to have totally detached itself from the rest of his body. He was aflame. Every never ending in his body was on fire, screaming for more. He didn’t want to cool down. He wanted to burn. He wanted, no, he needed more.

Lucy had been great, but she couldn’t even come close to what being with a man did to him. The combination between domination and submission, the feeling of pressing against another strong body, well, nothing could compare to that. 

His orgasm took him by surprise. For a guy, who usually relished control, the total absence of it shouldn’t really be this invigorating. As he came, his knees buckled. Jack held him up, and for this fact alone, he would have to find a way to at least kill the guy once. Just to return the favour of having reduced a Time Lord (especially him) to puddle. It wouldn’t do to give Jack any ideas!

Harry slumped to the floor when Jack let him go. He looked up briefly, noticing the rather obvious wet patch on Jack's trousers. "Well," Harry drawled, "so much for your brilliant plan."

"Oh, this is even better," Jack proclaimed, strutting out his hips. "Anyone looking at us now will notice we've both come already. Will make the story even more believable, don’t you think?"

Harry muttered a string of courses as he got up. He tugged himself back in. The leather was streaked with come stains. When he moved towards the bathroom, looking to make himself more presentable, Jack stopped him. "Don’t."

Harry glared at him but then he gave a small nod. "Let's get this over with before I need to shoot someone just to proof a point."

"If you're too tense…," Jack offered, voice trailing off.

With his head held high, Harry strutted past him. He ignored the brief glimpse he got of himself in the nearby mirror. The outfit was totally ridiculous. The black, see-through shirt hid nothing at all. The long-sleeves only seemed to draw more attention to the outline of his body, with glimpses of pale flesh flashing at every possible moment.

The leather pants were ridiculously tight, leaving nothing at all to imagination. He might just as well walk around naked because it wouldn't be much different. He didn’t even want to get started on the stupid black eye liner Jack had forced him to put on. Not even under torture would he ever admit to kind of liking the way it emphasised his brown eyes. He looked ridiculous. How anyone could find this sexy, he didn’t know. Still, Jack insisted this was the way to go. 

The moment he stepped out of the cheap motel room, heads turned his way. Since it wasn’t in Harry's nature to cringe, he held his head even higher, meeting every single stare head on.

"If you don’t turn it down," Jack stepped up beside him, "then I will have to beat people away from with you with a stick."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

There was a moment of silence. "You are serious," Jack carefully said.

"I still don’t know what you're talking about," Harry informed Jack. He didn’t turn his head because this conversation was entering a bizarre moment. He didn’t do _bizarre_. Neither did he talk about his feelings, or lament his tragic past. He was a guy, a Time Lord, he was made out of sturdier stuff.

"Harry."

Harry didn’t react.

"Master."

No reaction.

Jack stepped in front of Harry. Before Harry could side step the insolent human, Jack froze him in place with a simple stare. What was so mesmerizing about those clear eyes, Harry couldn’t tell.

"Time Lords really seem to be a bit dense when it comes to their looks."

Harry narrowed his eyes. Jack better rephrased the statement. He knew one Time Lord who qualified but he wasn’t dense. He was smart. And way quicker on the uptake as a certain someone they both knew and cared about.

"Master," Jack told him. His voice was carefully schooled, as if Jack was trying to bring a point across while trying to also soothe a frightened animal.

Harry narrowed his eyes further. He balled his fingers into tight fists because if Jack really wanted a beating, he could oblige. Not a problem. There were easier ways to ask for one though.

"I don’t know about any of your previous regenerations, but even at the height of your insanity, this body of yours commanded attention."

"Of course," Harry rolled his eyes, his anger slowly fading away. "They knew that with one command I could end their lives. Naturally, they stared at me. After all, always keep your eye on the predator."

Jack made a funny sound. Harry tilted his head, unsure how to take it. "No," Jack answered. "Sure, you're still insane. Drums or no drums, you strike me as the type of guy who's always going to be a bit nuts."

Harry chewed on his lower lip. He wasn’t so sure if he should react to the statement. Was it an insult? He didn’t feel insulted, but there was something _there_ he thought he should react to.

"I won't call you pretty," Jack continued. "But surely you know you have a striking presence. I wouldn’t call you handsome either since the word wouldn’t do you justice either. There's something compelling about. Despite everything you've done, I've always been attracted to you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You're just crazy," he told him. "And, obviously, into sadomasochism. This has got nothing to do with me."

"No," Jack insisted, his voice taking on a commanding tone. "You are good looking, Harry. I don’t understand why you can't believe me when I tell you that you can draw every gaze in a room just by entering it. The Doctor is the same way. There's just something about you, which makes other people sit up and take notice."

As if on cue, a woman sauntered towards. She tossed her green hair over her shoulder, as if the action was supposed to make Harry's blood quicken.

"How much?" She asked, letting her eyes travel up and down Harry's body. She licked her lips, clearly pleased with what she was seeing.

"Lady," Jack inserted himself in between Harry and the woman. "I got to him first."

"Oh, please," she waved at him as if he was a lousy insect in her way. "I can pay double. Triple even. What do you say?"

Harry stared at her. He forced his mouth to close. He was at a loss for words. He would've never considered himself as lacking in self-esteem. Hell, if anything, his confidence was sometimes a bit too much. But could Jack be right? When it came to intelligence, to science, no one could best him. Well, on a good day, the Doctor might come close, Harry was willing to admit, but no one else could hold a candle to his intellect.

He'd also never been shy of finding willing bed partners. Contrary to what humans thought, Time Lords did have a sex drive. Sure, maybe compared to how active humans were, maybe not so much, but come on. Time Lords could live for centuries. If they were lucky, humans barely managed to live for 100 years. And out of those 100 years, how many could they reasonably expect to be sexually active? Of course they were rutting like animals at every opportunity! They had less time to get satisfied!

The Doctor had never wanted him, not sexually at least. He'd never been attracted to his then friend, and since then, anyone Harry had been with, had probably not really wanted _him_. Not like Harry had wanted the Doctor all those long years ago.

Well, he thought with venom, wasn’t this nice. Now, he had something else he could lay at the Doctor's feet. If he wouldn't be so mortified by Jack potentially being right, and for having discovered a weakness, then he would actually be able to enjoy the moment of finding yet another reason to hate the Doctor. Hate was after all so much easier than love. Look were loving the idiot had gotten him in the first place! Look where everyone else had ended up who had dared to fall in love with the Time Lord. Love and the Doctor never ended well! He was like…a black hole of love. He sucked it all up until nothing but disaster remained.

"Well," Jack's smug voice brought Harry back to reality. "I guess this proofs my point." Jack gave Harry a funny look. "One day I would like to meet the guy who taught you that you aren’t desirable. Nothing pisses me more off than someone telling another person they aren’t worth anything."

Harry stared at Jack, this time he was fully aware he was gaping, but he couldn’t help himself. Jack patted him on the shoulder before he ushered Harry back into moving.

"Come on, we got a breaking and entering to finish, right?"

Harry could only nod.

##

It galled Harry to admit, but Jack was right. Getting into the time agency went without a hitch. Sure, he got a few leers and a few more offers, but otherwise, no one looked at them twice. Jack's reputation, and Harry's obvious clothes (and apparently looks, according to Jack) sealed the deal.

Once they were in the office, Jack started to make suggestive noises in case anyone walked by. Harry offered up the occasional moan and breathless name calling just to round up the picture. In reality, he was busy using the terminal to hack into the secure database.

"Damn it," he cursed. He sat back in the chair.

"What?"

"I can't get the data from here. I thought, I could, but we actually will have to get below."

"Let's get going then," Jack told him. 

"Is this really your office?" Harry asked as he got up.

"Don’t be stupid," Jack told him as he opened the door. "This is a time agency. Do you imagine how many offices there would have to be if every agent had one? You can just pick any empty one if you come here."

Harry nodded. It made sense. 

"Give me a minute," he told Jack once they'd reached the first check-point. One of the good things about _advanced humanity_ was their over-reliance on all things electronically. If a good old fashioned guard had been stationed here, looking at a pass, or at a photo of them, then they would've needed to come up with a new plan. Like this though, getting the door to open was almost too easy.

"You're almost as good as the Doctor at this," Jack told him.

"I beg your pardon," Harry hissed. "I'm better than he is. He needs his bloody sonic screw driver to do anything. I can do this on my own."

Jack only hummed. Harry decided to take this an affirmative.

They walked down the stairs until they entered the large vault.

"Don’t you think this was way too easy?" Jack whispered.

"We're most certainly going to get shot at now that you've pointed it out," Harry hissed. He wasn’t one to be suspicious, but pointing these things out never ended well. He paused. He could start a study. It might be interesting to put himself, and others, into dangerous situations, and then evaluate the data afterwards. Did commenting on something having gone well really lead to disaster? Did time really bend just because some idiot dared to mutter the fated words? 

Time in itself might not be sentient, but Harry had been around the block long enough to know that a strong belief might actually be enough to move mountains. Since most of humanity seemed to be familiar with the sentiment, it might be enough to actually force time to change, to bend. Imagine the power he could harness if he could figure out the mechanism how to do it properly! It was mind boggling, really!

_Hm…._

"Did you take a mental hike? Master?" Jack poked him in the shoulder.

"Watch it," Harry threatened. "Let's find a terminal. We don’t have the time to actually search through paper, books or whatever other old fashioned things are stored here. Surely they have some sort of system."

"Would you be terribly affronted if I told you that humans usually do not tend to live for cataloguing things? Most of the time we just throw old stuff into a room and forget about it.

Harry spluttered.

"You seem to be terribly in need of order," Jack continued. "I always thought you were supposed to be chaos. Compared to the Doctor, you actually seem to be a bit more uptight. I never thought this was possible."

"Do you want to die?" The Master asked calmly. "Do you miss pain? Is that why you keep pissing me off?"

"It's just," Jack smile wickedly at him. "The Doctor doesn’t really react to me needling him anymore. You're so much more fun!"

Harry actually growled at Jack. The audacity of the human! He was a dangerous Time Lord. He'd killed countless beings. He'd tried to conquer Earth!

"Tried being the obvious word here, right?"

Had Harry actually said those things out loud?

The slamming of a door brought their squabble to a halt. Both men stared at each other, remembering why they were here.

"You go this way," Harry ordered, "and I'll go this way."

"Master!" Jack called after him as Harry walked away. He hated having to improvise, but they were clearing running out of time. Hopefully, the universe was on their side. Hopefully, their steps would be guided towards the information they were looking for.

He didn’t believe in miracles or in higher entities. He believed in cold hard facts, and in what you could accomplish yourself. No one else would come to your aid anyway. He'd learned that the hard way.

However, he wasn’t above using all his options if there was even a small chance of them working in his favour.

When he tripped over something on the floor, he landed face first in a pile of discarded paper. The noise brought shouts and footsteps coming his way.

However, when his eyes settled on the pile, a few key phrases jumped out at him. Without thinking twice about it, he hugged the pile. "Jack!" he yelled. "Get your ass back here. I found it!"

Why by all that was holy, he hadn't just transported away, he didn’t know. Jack dashed around the corner, right as two guards approached from the other side. Harry couldn’t really move, not if he wanted to be able to transport the entire pile of information with them.

The next events kind of happened simultaneously. As Jack through himself on top of Harry, the guards started firing at them. Thankfully, Jack had the presence of mind to hit the button on Harry's vortex manipulator. Seconds later, they vanished into thin air, taking the pile of paper with them.

The sharp flare of pain at Harry's side didn’t even register with him. As they materialized on the Tardis, he continued to ignore the warning signs coming from his body in favour of cooing happily. His plan had worked! He'd outsmarted the Doctor!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! But moving will do that to you.

"Jack!" The Doctor's voice could be heard clearly echoing through the control room of the Time Lord's Tardis. "Why are you here? Why are you lying on top of Harry?"

As if Jack only realized their comprising situation now, he slowly extracted himself, not without giving Harry a too familiar pat on the small of his back.

"Watch it," Harry growled. The insolent human better not think he would be entitled to take liberties now with his person, just because he'd gotten into Harry's pants before. Of course, Harry should've known better than to, apparently, throw the gauntlet down in front of Jack. Instead of backing away, like any sane person would've done, Jack leaned back down again, effectively trapping the Master underneath his weight. He then leaned in, blowing at his ear.

"Stop it," Harry snarled. He couldn’t quite keep the quiver out of his voice. Not because he was attracted to Jack Harkness of all people. What happened before, was a fluke. Even a Time Lord had needs. He lifted his head slightly so he could look at the Doctor. He wasn’t so sure what expression he'd expected, but seeing the outrage firmly edged into the Time Lord's young looking face had him stiffening his back instantly.

Jack must've realized something was different because he didn’t press any further. Once the weight was off his body, Harry straightened up. Darks spots started dancing almost immediately in front of his vision. He shook his head. When this didn’t clear anything up, he raised his hand, rubbing his face.

"I get that you think I'm repulsive," Harry icily said, "but just because I'm not someone you could ever fancy, doesn’t mean others don’t find me attractive. And you don’t need me to tell you, that your good Captain Harkness here has a bit of a strange sense of humour when it comes to sex."

"You two?" The Doctor's voice trailed off. Harry would've loved to keep staring at his face, but for some reason, all his concentration was required to keep upright. What the hell was going on? He placed his hand at his side, not even realizing he was doing it. Maybe if he hadn’t been so detached from his body, for whatever reason, he would've realized sooner that something was wrong.

"Jack!" The Doctor lamented. "Why would you sleep with the Master? Did he force himself on you? Did he coerce you in anyway? What the hell have you two been up to?" And, without even stopping to take a breath, he added. "And Master, what are you wearing? Don’t you have sense of fashion at all?"

Harry snorted. "Coming from you, that's very rich. Don’t you forget, I know perfectly well that you used to wear a vegetable. And don’t make me even start on some of your other rather bizarre choices of clothes."

"You wore a vegetable?" Jack injected.

"Don’t distract from the point," the Doctor waved Harry's very reasonable objections away. "What did you do to Jack?"

Harry spluttered. The pain in his side increased. The dull ache in his skull started to press downwards, making him hunch his shoulders. He looked down, staring at where his hand was pressed to his body. "I'm shot," he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. "How come I didn’t even notice?" As if in a trance, he slowly removed his hand, staring at his fingers. They were coated in blood. Now, that he'd removed the pressure, more freely gushed to the surface, making him feel quite weak in the knees.

"How come you think I need to force people into having sex with me?" He asked, because this clearly was more important than getting injured. Deep down, in some lost corner of his still fractured mind, he realized he wasn’t thinking clearly any more. Shock, properly, or something else stupid. Despite the fights the Doctor and the Master had gotten into over their 900 years of quarrel, neither one of them had ever gotten seriously hurt. A little bit of torture went a long way, but neither one of them had harmed the other in any permanent way. "I didn’t start it," he added petulantly, his voice taking on the tone of a small child defending himself to his parent. "It's been a while," he continued.

"I took advantage," Jack corrected. "He didn’t start anything, but I riled him up. Once I got his temper going, one thing led to another. If you want to blame anyone for having a good time, just blame me."

"I think I'm going to pass out now," Harry announced. This simple statement finally got everyone to stare at him. He could practically feel their gazes zoom in on the problem. The world swayed. Then, the ground rushed forward to meet him. The pain intensified, as if someone had thrown gasoline on an already raging fire. It drowned out everything else around him. He might just as well have passed out because when he started registering things again, he was flat on his back. He recognized the cool surface as belonging to one of the sick beds in the Tardis' med bay. Panic rose within him.

He was strapped down, totally immobilized. He couldn’t even move a single muscle. His mind, still reeling from the journey, wasn’t up to hurling insults at the puny humans trying to do him in. When something metallic was pressed over his head, he couldn't supress a shudder. He tried to re-enforce his mental shields, finding that he couldn’t. His gaze flickered to needles stuck in his arms. Had they injected him with something?

He couldn’t focus. The world swam in and out, never staying sharp enough for him to actually fully comprehend what was going on. So when his small remaining mental shields shattered, he wasn’t prepared at all for what happened next.

He screamed.

"Keep him down!" The Doctor's voice overlapped with someone else yelling, someone the Master didn’t even know. He fought, finally managing to get an arm free. He balled his fingers into a tight fist, lashing out. Sadly, he didn’t have the time to enjoy the sensation when he managed to injure one of them.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor babbled. "I hate to do this, but you're not giving me any choice. Just relax, you can trust me."

"Can't trust anyone," Harry mumbled. Something sharp pricked his skin, causing him to jerk violently. His eyes flew open. Why had they been closed? How come he hadn’t even realized? Instead of the lab he'd come to expect, faced with countless strangers, he only saw Jack and the Doctor. "What's happening?" he slurred before all speech failed him.

"You're having a rather violent flashback. Just relax. You're safe here."

Harry would've protested further, but he couldn’t find the strength to move his lips. He didn’t trust anyone. Hadn't especially the Doctor been keen on teaching him exactly that lesson early on? Something must've shown on his face though because the Doctor reeled back as if he'd been slapped. This time, Harry allowed himself to drift. He probably should fight. If he were the Time Lord he'd once been, he would be able to force the drug out of his system before the Doctor could count to a hundred. But he wasn’t the same man anymore. For better or worse, he didn’t have the will to continue the fight. Not right now at least, not when the silence was so comfortable, lulling him in. Was it really so wrong to just drift for a while?

##

Whatever drug he'd been given, wasn’t enough to completely knock him out. He drifted in and out of consciousness, catching snippets of conversations. The passing of time eluded him, which should've alarmed him, but he couldn’t even muster the strength for a small internal freak out.

"Why did he come to you of all people?" The Doctor asked with a whine in his voice.

"He said you weren’t listening to him," Jack answered levelly. "And frankly, if I hadn't promised you to give you time to figure things out, I might've shot him on sight. I know enough to keep shooting to ensure he doesn’t regenerate too."

"But why _you_? Why didn’t he try to talk to me?"

"Maybe because he already tried, and you didn’t listen?"

"You didn’t take advantage of him, Jack. No one takes advantage of the Master."

"You didn’t see him then," Jack answered with a strange tone in his voice. "Actually, when was the last time you actually took a step back, and really looked?"

"What?"

"I know you've got this epic fight going on, but what started it?"

Predictably, the Doctor didn’t answer.

"Something convinced the guy he isn’t really worth anything. No wonder he's trying to proof to the world he isn't trash by throwing a major tantrum. Sure, trying to dominate everyone and everything might be an extreme reaction, but come on. You know enough that if you make someone believe they aren’t worth anything, this can go two ways. Either that person completely shuts himself off from the world, or he starts to try and proof everyone he's better. Isn't that what he's been trying to do? And wasn’t it always about you?"

"So, now this is my fault?" The Doctor shouted.

"Believe me, I'm the first one to admit, I don’t even know why we're having this conversation. I can't even wrap my head around the fact that I'm remotely sympathetic to the psychopath. And yet, he's come to me for help. He's been totally reasonable even in his own demented way. Maybe I've been around the block for too long, maybe I've lost all sense of right and wrong too since the year-that-never-was, but I tell you, what I've glimpse of him, I can totally relate. I can't say I condone what he's done, but at least I can understand where he's coming from."

"You aren’t seriously telling me, you've forgiven him for stringing you up for a year?" The Doctor didn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice. Clearly, he couldn’t even imagine _anyone_ siding with his once friend. Something snapped inside the Master, something fragile, he hadn’t even known he still had. Apparently, there wasn’t anything desirable about him at all. "The Master's got a brilliant mind. Surely, he's playing you."

"No." For some reason Harry couldn’t understand, Jack's voice was quite firm when he rejected the Doctor's reasonable comment. "He's a good liar. So are you as a matter of fact. But," Jack added gravely, "there are some instinctual reactions you can't really hide. Despite all his faults, even at the height of his insanity, the Master never once lied to your face. Sure, he manipulated people into voting for him, but he never once made excuses for who, or what, he was. In his own way, he's always been honest about what drives him."

"And what's that?"

"You."

The snort of disbelief practically echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls, and sending the Master's ears ringing. His mind conjured up happy images of his fist connecting with the Doctor's smug face. More than once. When the bloody visage still insisted on smiling at him, he indulged in ripping the head off the shoulders. There, so much better. He'd always fancied a head for a bowling ball. Got style, right? Would definitely be unique.

"Sure, he's smart," Jack agreed. "But there's a difference between intelligence and self-confidence. I mean, he knows no one can hold a candle to him apart from you. But you know what? Knowing he's smart, doesn’t mean he actually thinks he's worth something. And something tells me that you, my good friend, are at the root of the problem."

"The Master's insanity isn’t my fault," the Doctor tried again. Even to Harry's ears, his insistence sounded a bit insecure. "Sure, I might've given him a good push, I can't deny it, but it takes two to fight."

"What happened between the two of you?"

"I don’t want to talk about it. It's water under the bridge anyway. It was too long ago to still affect anything."

"Clearly, you're totally over it," Jack's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Of course, I am." Either the Doctor had turned deaf, or he still didn’t get it. But did the Master actually get it? Why was Jack defending him of all people? He was defending him, right? His ears weren’t deceiving him? 

"Everything needs a trigger, Doc," Jack eventually said. "He might've gone mad anyway, with or without the _something_ you aren’t willing to talk about. But if you want…" The rest of what Jack said, vanished into the ether.

Harry had heard enough anyway. He didn’t resist, when he drifted off again, when the darkness swapped over him, dragging him under. One thing had become clear though. He might have to do something nice for Jack, just to repay the debt. Maybe Jack wanted someone dead, or maimed? Surely, anyone living for as long as the good Captain, must have a few enemies out there. And the Master always repaid what he owed. It would be his pleasure.

But this wasn’t he'd finally learned. Maybe, Jack did have a point. Maybe, the Master was a bit dense when it came to emotional intelligence. Not that he'd needed it in the past. He'd always been quiet clear on what he wanted, and how to go about obtaining it. What use was there to self-analyse like humans seemed to like to do?

No, what he'd learned was a simple truth he should've understood years ago. The Doctor didn’t love him. Chasing after him, drawing him into violent games, engaging him in battle, wasn’t going to change the fact either. No one can force another being into caring about someone, it either happened or it didn’t. Sure, once upon a time the Doctor had cared about him. They'd been friends. But Harry had seriously deluded himself when he'd thought travelling with the Doctor might change his friend's feelings.

And if the Doctor had wanted to, if he'd just taken a moment and really _looked_ , he would've realized the desperation with which the Master had gone after him. Sane or not, looking back, the Master had to admit he'd been rather obvious, embarrassingly so. For someone as smart as the Doctor to not realize what he'd been practically screaming in his face, well, the only logical conclusion was that the Doctor hadn't cared to look. And didn’t that simple fact just answer all the questions Harry had? It most certainly did.

Before the waves of nothingness completely swept him away, he made one more vow. He'd honour his promise to the Doctor to figure out the drums, but then? Then, he was gone. And he was going to stay gone. No more games, no more chasing after someone who didn’t want him to begin with. The Doctor wanted to be left alone? Well, Harry was going to grant him his wish. Surely, the universe was big enough for the two of them never to run into each other again.

##

When Harry woke up again, he could feel the Doctor's presence nearby. He slowly opened his eyes, unsure if the first thing he wanted to see after waking up was the Doctor's condescending face.

"Argh," he recoiled. He closed his eyes again. The Doctor's face had been only millimetres away from him. His senses must be really off, if he hadn't even realized how close the other Time Lord was.

He opened his eyes, placing his hands on the Doctor's chest to shove him backwards. When he had room to breathe again, Harry carefully rolled off the bed. His knees wobbled a little bit, but by keeping a steadying hand on the bed, he managed to stay upright.

Before anyone could say anything to diffuse the awkward silence, Jack strolled into the room in nothing but a towel. Harry swallowed audibly, while the Doctor gasped out loud.

"Jack!" The Doctor yelled. He pushed past Harry, coming to stand in front of him. Harry moved sideways, unsure why the Doctor seemed to want to block his view. Contrary to him, Harry could appreciate a finely-toned body without having fits of propriety.

"You coming back to bed?" Jack asked, his gaze directed at the Doctor, who seemed to turn beet red. Harry was staring at the back of his head, but he could clearly see the tips of his ears turning scarlet.

He frowned. His eyes travelled from the Doctor ears to Jack's smug face and back. Realisation hit him at once.

"Well, Doctor," he drawled, forcing his stance into a relaxed posture he didn’t feel at all. On the inside, he felt as if he was going to snap at any time, like a rope pulled too taunt. "I didn’t know you finally got over the stick up your ass. Congratulations! How long's it been since the last time? One or two hundred years? Maybe even more? Well," he added with a leer. "You couldn’t have picked a better bed partner, I'm sure."

The Doctor hurled around so quickly, the Master nearly got dizzy. "Jack…and me…"

"You saying you didn’t do the horizontal with him?" Harry raised an eye brow, daring the Doctor to lie to his face.

"No, well, no…" The Doctor stuttered. Then, he straightened his back. "It's none of your business who I sleep with. You don’t see me kicking up a fuss about Lucy."

"What about Lucy?" Harry asked, suddenly quite confused. She hadn't really meant much to him. Sure, she'd been his wife, but it had been more of a business arrangement than anything else. The sex had been adequate too, but neither one of them had thought much about it. Her shooting him had taken him by surprise, granted, but she'd never all too stable to begin with. It was his fault really to hook up with someone close to the breaking point. Besides, death had been preferable back then to being alive and tortured by the drums.

The Doctor seemed to lose his train of thought again. He turned around, facing Jack. "Come on, Jack. Let's find you some clothes," he said. He walked up to him, placing a hand on the guy's shoulder. They started whispering, their bodies close. Sure, with his excellent hearing, he could've listened, but did he really want to? He started to observe their body language instead.

The way the Doctor allowed Jack to crowd into his space, touch him even, spoke of familiarity and of trust. And for Jack, he didn't seem at all too bothered with the Doctor returning the favour. Maybe this didn’t mean so much for Jack, who seemed to be a rather free-thinking individual to begin with, but it meant everything when it came to the Doctor.

The Master swallowed hard. He ignored the bile rising in his throat. Not willing to be subjected to the display any longer, he gathered his strength, and strutted out of the room with his head held high. As predicted, the Doctor hadn't moved the pile of paper he'd arrived with. He sat down on the ground, listlessly poking at the mess. Did he really want to subject himself to the Doctor and Jack? It really shouldn’t bother him at all if the Doctor finally broke his strange vow of chastity. And yet, it did.

It might've been delusional of him to believe, the Doctor hadn't engaged in relations all this time. But he'd never been around to witness it. And since he was a man who only believed in what he could see, he'd been perfectly happy with the belief the Doctor simply wasn’t interested in anyone. So, if he wasn’t interested in the Master, then it wasn’t out of the ordinary, right?

Clearly the amount of self-delusion he'd indulged in was shocking. His gaze settled on an old and weathered piece of manuscript. The language was old, some sort of obscure dialect from a world long forgotten, but at some stage, he must've become familiar with it since he was able to read it. Could this be it? His hands shook slightly when he reached out, picking it up.

If he was right, he could get he answers they needed without having to witness the Doctor and Jack in action. He wouldn’t be breaking any promise either, since he'd only agreed to help the Doctor with finding out what the drums were. He hadn't promised to stay with him while doing so.

With his mind made up, he shoved the paper into the back of his trouser. He placed a hand on the controls of the Tardis, asking her to help him. As usual, she wouldn’t let him near the controls herself, but she wasn’t above landing where he asked her to.

"Thank you," he said out loud before opening the door. He received a hum in reply. The moment he stepped outside, he heard the familiar sound of the Doctor's Tardis vanishing form time and space.

He ignored the curious stares he received as he walked into the nearest shop. He leaned against the counter. "Hello there," he drawled. "I seem to have lost my phone. Would you mind if I use yours to make a local call?"

The young man stared at him as if he had grown two heads. Without another word, he slid the ancient looking phone across for him to use. It was only then, Harry realized he was still wearing the same clothes Jack had given him. And now, they were stained with his blood. Excellent, he wryly thought, totally inconspicuous.

He quickly dialled the number, knowing he had to vanish quickly before someone called the police. She picked up at the second ring. "It's me," he quickly said, not wanting to waste too much time in case UNIT had taken to bugging her phone. "Can you meet me where you told me your parents had their first date?"

"I'll be there," Tracey quickly answered before hanging up.

"Thank you," Harry slid the phone back to the guy who was still staring at him. "I'm sorry for the bother," he continued, giving him his best innocent look. "I got a bit overexcited about dressing up for the party last night. Do you think I could use your bathroom to wash up a bit? I don’t really want to cause a scene…"

The guy nodded, still apparently unable to string two sentences together. He did point towards a door in the back however.

"Thank you very much," Harry said with as much feeling as he could muster.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait. Moving to a new country turned out to be a lot more stressful than I thought! I should've known better! Here is the next installment. More hopefully soon!
> 
> And I hope you are still there!

It didn't take long for Tracey to show up. She took one look at him, raised an eye brow, and immediately ushered him into her car.

"What the hell have you been up to?" she asked him the moment he was inside.

"Nothing," he tried to deflect. He avoided looking at her too. The passing scenery really was quite pleasant. He hadn't been this way before. The Doctor wasn’t the only one to take an interest in new things. Sure, the Master usually was more interested in taking things apart, violently even, just to see what would happen, but the basic curiosity was something they both shared.

Something caught his attention at the corner of his eyes. He turned. His eyes widened. He reached out without thinking twice about it. He grabbed the steering wheel, yanking it towards him. "Look out!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Tracey couldn't even scream. The sound of metal crashing onto metal, of being squeezed and deformed, was almost deafening. Everything happened so fast, and yet so slow, Harry barely had time to react. The car tipped over, rolling a few times, until everything fell blessedly silent. He tried to re-orient himself, to move, to do something other than nothing. He fumbled for the seat belt, realising at the last minute he hadn't actually put one on.

"Tracey?" His voice sound hollow even to him. There was no answer. He looked up to what used to be to his left side, but there was no one there. "Tracey!" he yelled again. The former car door was gone, or at least twisted so far sideways, that it might just as well have not existed at all. He crawled on shaky limbs upwards, pulling and shuffling his tired body as much as he could. Time Lords weren’t as easily hurt as humans, but they were far from indestructible. Plus, the regeneration the Doctor had run on his injured side wasn’t fully complete yet. Sure, he wasn't bleeding like a stuck pig anymore, but if he pulled too sharply, there was a good chance he might tear his flesh open again.

Had he lost time? Where was Tracey? He heaved himself out of the car. Gravity took him by surprise. Instead of gracefully climbing over the edge of the wrecked side, he tumbled forward, crashing to the ground with a loud _umph_.

Two muffled shots had all his nerve endings firing. He lifted his head, his body tensing like a cat's. Tracey's still body jerked from the force of impact. For someone who had seen countless deaths, been the cause of untold many even, seeing someone shot at close range shouldn't render him speechless. But it did. His brain couldn't compute. This simply couldn’t happen. He gaped, staring at the blood slowly seeping from her lifeless body. Thankfully, her head wasn’t turned. If he had to actually watch her life ebb away, if he got to see her eyes grow dull…with a roar, he flung himself off the ground, ignoring how every limb ached in protest. _Time stood still_ was an odd human phrase. Time always moved; it might go forward, backward, sideways, but it never completely seized to do anything. And yet, everything around him seemed to stop. All sounds dulled until they were practically gone. He moved, lightening quick, until he reached his target.

He got to the man with the gun before any of the other henchmen could stop him. Clearly they hadn't thought he was a threat. He grabbed onto the man's neck, twisting sharply. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. Twisting a human's neck required strength and the knowledge just how to apply the proper pressure. The Master's bloody past might not be something Harry was proud off. It was a part of who he had been, and still was to some extent, but without the drums, he was a changed man. Right now though, there wasn’t an ounce of compassion within him. The man dropped to the ground without putting up much fight.

Harry snarled, his face contorting into a hideous grimace. Something sharp pricked his skin right where his neck and shoulder met. He raised a hand, rubbing at it. He found something imbedded in his skin. He cradled it in the palm of his hand, staring at it with a sort of dumbfounded expression on his face. The world tilted. The gigantic roaring inside his head took on epic proportion, like an unleashed tidal wave crashing over him without any warning at all. He gazed up at the sky, wondering how he had ended up on the ground. He should be better than this. He should be able to overcome whatever those humans had used to drug him with. He should…the world turned dangerously dark.

One of his last conscious thoughts was _not again_.

##

"Strap him down."

"No, you imbecile, keep him sedated!"

Harry floated in and out of consciousness. The strand of awareness that was telling him to wake up, tugged at the part of him which was perfectly content to let sleeping dogs lie. There was a kind of piece to being unaware he wasn’t familiar with.

However, he wasn’t the sort of man, or Time Lord, who knew how to lie down and give up. Tempting as it might be, it just wasn’t in his nature. He reared up, his instinct telling him without doubt what to do. If conscious thought was nothing but an afterthought, it was mighty good to have the inner workings of a predator, of someone not known to care for others.

He grabbed the first human throat he could find, twisted, and threw the man sideways. There was a loud crack, but Harry didn’t stop to check if he'd managed to twist the man's neck or break his head on the nearby wall. He was out of the picture, nothing else mattered.

He'd rarely given into his fury. The Doctor, also known as the Oncoming Storm, did occasionally let his emotions get the better of him. While the Master might plan and enjoy a good mayhem now and there, he couldn’t recall the last he'd truly lost it, so to speak.

There was a kind of enjoyment to be had to be free of all, removed from all constraints. Anger turned his vision blood red. Could be his imagination, showing him what he could achieve if he could only focus. Could be because of the blood he still managed to spill while partially strapped down. Either way, pleasure soared through him with every drop of blood he spilled.

"Keep him down!" Someone yelled nearby.

With his legs already immobilized, Harry couldn’t quite twist and turn the way he wanted. He leaned forward, forgoing to kill and maim for just a second. He needed to get off this blasted bed. Despite his strength and ferociousness, he wasn’t going to get very far if he couldn’t move!

Two strong men, probably fed enough steroids to cause permanent damage, grabbed him by the shoulders. They pushed him back down until he was flat on his back. He fought with all he head, even resulting to scratching and biting whenever he could. However, he was no match for the needle pressed into neck.

Dark edges slowly crept back into his vision. No, he wouldn’t surrender, not this time. Humans would pay for this. They would…nothing remained.

##

Metal chaffed the side of his head, cold and fiery on his temples. Pain, unlike any other lanced through his skull, kind of as if someone would use a really sharp knife to carve up a nice slice of meat.

Screams filled his ears. He hoped it was the agonized shouts of his enemies, but even in his incapacitated state of mind he knew wishful thinking when he encountered it. Still, a guy could dream, right?

_That's mine_ , he thought with heat. _My memory. Leave it alone!_

He pulled up a wall, trying to block the intrusion. Like before, as if someone used a drill, tiny cracks started to appear. Every single fraction of the destruction of his protective wall sent another shock of pain through his body. He wished he could keep this up indefinitely, but he knew better.

He pulled all his strength, forgoing other bodily function will he was at it, trying to booster his mental shields. For some memories, he was already too late. He could easily recognize the dark edges where treasured information used to be store. Now, there was nothing there but gaping darkness. If he couldn’t protect himself, then nothing of who he was would be left! He would be blank, totally unaware of who and what he was. A blank slate.

Knowledge settled in the pit of his stomach like ice cubes. This is what they wanted. Thanks to the Doctor, they knew how powerful a Time Lord was. They knew what they could do, what power they could harness. But, despite his goodwill towards humankind, there were many things the Doctor would never do.

But they managed to get a _pet Time Lord_ , they could truly write history the way they wanted. The damage they would be able to do…he couldn’t fathom it. Despite all he'd done, he'd never messed with important events in time. Sure, a little push here and there, cause a little chaos, but he was a Time Lord at hear. He knew how far he could do without upsetting the general fabric of time. Those idiot did not. And once everything was gone from his mind, neither would he. He would be nothing more than a tool. They could point him in the right direction, and then wait for him to obliterate anything in his path.

He would rather die than let them get their way.

His protective wall broke apart. Light streamed through it, trying to illuminate the inner workings of his mind. No, they wanted a Time Lord still capable of normal function. If he couldn’t keep them out, then he would plunge himself so far into the depths of his mind that he would never regain consciousness.

_Take this, humans!_ , he thought with venom. _You thought you'd overpowered the Master. But I win in the end! You won't use me. All you have will be a shell._

Then, like a bird of prey circling high up in the sky, he plunged forward. He'd never gone this far down before, no one had. But he didn’t care. He'd won after all. No one would beat him, no one. They could have his comatose body, but they would never get his mind.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I had lots on my mind. I hope anyone is still reading this!

"What do you think you're doing?" The whine in Jack's voice grated on the Doctor's nerves, but he was willing to ignore it. "Come back to bed," Jack continued.

The Doctor ignored the outstretched hand. He got out of bed, fumbling for his clothes. Something was wrong. He could feel it deep down in his bones. When he was somewhat decent, he stepped out into the hallway. He ignored Jack's calls, too focused on whatever was bothering him.

When he reached the control room, he paused. Could it be?

"What did you do?" He whispered, his eyes slowly widening as the TARDIS caressed his mind, informing him of her decision. He shook his head, as if that gesture would make the past go away. "Please tell me you didn’t land and let the Master go?" he pleaded with his ship, knowing the answer already to the question.

"Damn it," he cursed, banging his hand against the railing. The ship whined in protest, but the only one hurt was him. He cradled his smarting hand towards his chest, settling for glaring at the wall.

"Can you take me to where you left him?" he asked. Nothing happened. He sighed. He rolled his eyes at himself, at his own blindness. How could he have missed his very own TARDIS siding with the Master over him? He frowned, she wouldn’t. Not unless there was a very good reason for it.

It wasn’t widely known, that apart from being sentient, TARIDSes could also sometimes sense the flow of time, instinctively knowing where to go. It wasn’t only his supposed bad driving skills which always seemed to put him and his friends in danger. He took a deep breath. He didn’t like it, but he had no choice. He had to trust his ship. He just hoped neither one of them was going to regret it.

##

"How long have you been at it then?"

The Doctor shrugged. He didn’t even bother coming out from underneath the console. Jack, thankfully, knew him better than to push.

The sharp needle like pain piercing his skull had him twitching uncontrollably.

"Doctor?" He could barely hear Jack shouting his name over the roar in his ears. Was there an ocean nearby? What the hell was happening? The pain intensified to the point where nothing else mattered. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, or even think, the only thing that mattered was the unbelievable spike rammed right through his forehead.

If his people weren’t dead, if he and the Master weren’t the only two Time Lords alive, then what happened next would've been impossible. However, with the Doctor and the Master, the word _impossible_ took on a new meaning.

Still, establishing a mental link was never something he excelled at. Probably it was Harry reaching out, trying to search for help. He might not even know what he was doing, either way, their connection allowed the Doctor to catch glimpses of what was going on. They weren’t in real time, more like impression, like a vivid nightmare playing out inside his mind.

"Master!" he yelled, both inside his mind as well as on the outside.

As quickly as the onset of the pain, it vanished. From one second to the next, the connection was gone, vanished, as if it had never existed in the first place. The Doctor was panting, trying to catch his breath. His skin was clammy, and his hearts were racing as if he'd just run for miles.

"What the fuck was that?" Jack snarled, his fingers digging into the bony shoulders of the Doctor.

"Stop shaking me," the Doctor demanded.

He hadn’t expected for Jack to let go so suddenly. Without the support, he slumped backwards, banging his head against the underside of the control table.

"Oi!" he complained.

"You said to let go," Jack stubbornly refused to take any blame. The Doctor took a deep breath, but then he closed his mouth. He didn’t have the time to debate who was right or wrong with Jack. He had more important things to do.

"Will you take me now?" the Doctor demanded, not coating the edge to his voice. He winced when he got up, the sudden change in altitude aggravating his abused head again. However, compared to the pain he'd felt before, compared to the pain the Master must have endured, this was nothing. He ignored it, or at least shoved it so far down into the back of his mind that it might just as well not exist at all. And so what if he squinted a little bit, so what if the light seemed a little bit too bright. Surely there was pair of sunglasses around here somewhere!

The TARDIS didn’t object. The Doctor showed her what he'd seen, hoping she would be able to help. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. When she landed where she'd dropped of the Master not so long ago, the Doctor sighed. He rubbed his face, allowing his tiredness to show for a few seconds. Then, the mask was back on.

"Just a sec," he declared, leaving Jack behind. He raced down the corridor to his big closet. If the light in the TARDIS was so bright, he didn’t dare go outside without some protection. He might also need a shirt and shoes.

He threw on the first pair of boots he could find and settled for a dark shirt. It seemed a bit tight around his torso but he didn’t have the time to contemplate it. As long as the fabric didn’t rip, he was good. As anticipated, he also had a box full of sunglasses. Not wanting to waste any time deciding which one would fit him best, he grabbed the first pair he came across. Dark green might not be his style, but it would keep the glare away from his eyes.

He didn’t wait for Jack to follow him. He rushed past him, stepping outside. As predicted, the sun was smiling down on him. He might be a Time Lord, only supposed to be able to see time streams and what not, but he'd been around the block long enough to know that _time_ had a twisted sense of humour. Of course the sun would be shining when he was miserable and had a headache. How could it not?

He sniffed, looking like a squirrel. Jack might've sniggered behind him. Where would the Master have gone? He looked around. Wasn’t this the place where he'd been before? He used his senses to establish the location and the time.

Then, he followed his instincts. Who ever said the Doctor didn’t know how to be a proper detective should see him now! Within no time at all, he figured out which way Harry had gone. Sadly, when he laid eyes on the destroyed car, he didn’t feel accomplished at all.

"She's dead," Jack told him with forced calmness. 

The Doctor turned, noticing Harry's friend for the first time. He swallowed hard. This didn’t bode well for the Master. He walked past Jack, searching the ground for clues. No one could pull something like this off without leaving any trace behind.

"We should get out of here," Jack informed him. The Doctor ignored him. He crouched down, his fingers hovering over what appeared to be a torn sleeve. He could make out the symbol, and the writing, well enough. It was just his eyes refused to believe what he was seeing. Needing a second opinion, he picked it up, holding it up for Jack to take a look at.

"Unit?" Jack exclaimed. "You think Unit is involved?"

The Doctor let go of his evidence, needing no further prompting. It made sense. Unit had kidnapped the Master before, done who knew what to him to make him lose his memories. It made sense they would come back for him. But why? Sure, according to most humans, they would classify the Master as Earth's enemy number one, but was this the only reason?

Why hadn’t they told him, or at least tried to tell him, that they had the Master in custody? Instead they had employed every possible trick to mask their traces, to keep the information hidden from him.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jack yelled after him.

The Doctor wasn’t listening. Unit had his friend. Nothing else mattered. Heads would roll for this. He would rain down death and destruction onto anyone who assisted in hurting what was his.

If they thought the Master was the only one who knew how to hold a grudge, who knew how to plot revenge, well, they would be in for a rude awakening!

When he was done with the culprits, they would wish they were dead!

 

To be continued in Part 3 of the series, Drums of Time, coming soon!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3, Drums of Time, will be the last installment in this series. Unless something gets in the way of things again, or unless you guys tell me to not bother, then part 3 should start posting shortly.


End file.
